ON SLAVE TRADE (EAST COAST OF AFRICA).
81
]204.
■^-Tliey
slavery
^^bour.
Are there any coffee plantations there ?
have been nearly all deserted ; since
was put a stop to they have had no
1205. Chairman.l All they want is labour
then?—Yes, there are 37 islands of different
sizes ; some of them are large, and in those they
could employ a great many emancipated slaves.
Major Gen.
C. P. Pigby,
25 July
1871.
Captain Philip Colomb, r.n., called in; and Examined.
^ 1206. Sir J. 1: OU were employed for
considerable time on the East Coast of
:^lHca in the suppression of the slave trade ?—
^es.
1207. ill you state the dates between which
Joii were so employed?—Between November
and May 1870.
1208. Did you visit all the ports along the
Coast?—Not many ports on the African coast.
Y'^as employed on the African coast a little, and
^Iso on the Madagascar coast, but chiefly on the
^cast of Arabia.
1209. Did you capture many slavers ?—I capsix.
1210. Where did you capture them ?—One I
^^ptured in the Persian Gulf, which, I believe,
^Vas very rarely done, the remainder I captured
the coast of Arabia, near lias lYadiaka, 700
Diles from Aden.
1211. IVere they all vessels which had come
^^'cin the neighbourhood of Zanzibar?—All ex-^ept
the one captured in the Persian Gulf.
1212. M here had she come from?—She had
Coine from the south-eastern corner of the golf,
^^d was crossing to the Persian coast.
1213. She had nothing to do with the East
.Cast of Africa slave trade ?—No, except in so
she was one of the local slave traders which
Y^Ty slaves, originally from Africa, from the
®Cuthern coast of the Persian Gulf to the northern
1214. Have you any suggestions to make to
Committee with regard to the best mode of
^Ppressin^ the slave trade on the East Coast of
B^ca ?—dhe slaves come from various points
tong the coast of Africa, but they are all
j ''CRtually concentrated at Pas el Hadd, and by
Y' icg a sufficient force there to intercept them, it
to me that the trade could be almost entirely
jY'bped; to do that, it would be necessary to
a considerable force, some six or eight ships
probably from 1,000 to 1,200 tons, each ship
"Ging well supplied with steam pinnaces or
..Cam launches. Large ships by themselves at
. point would be of no avail whatever, because
slave vessels hug the shore as they come
and long before any boat can reach them
gj^cy run ashore and succeed in landing their
YY® ’ care nothing about the destruction
W dhow so long as they land their cargo. It
^jOuld be necessary in intercepting the trade at
point, to keep your steam launches anchored
P Y'^tler weigh close in shore so as to interpose a
g ^ 'between the beach and the vessels; then, in
N ^ Ciase, every dhow which appeared would
lu - V ^owmr her sail and give herself up without
^ fi’ouble. lhat is the chief point as to the
vYl cy^^ient of the force, but one great disad-Gf
which the officers commanding the ships
to f] ®flCîadron labour under is this, that on going
m .cc station they are not supplied w ith inforto
what had gone before; you are
in command of a ship with orders to supslave
trade, and you have no infbrma-^lio-l
^'^‘^.^cver as to how to suppress it; you
^ cf course have provided yourself with
some of the Blue Books, but you were not supplied
with them, and you were left to gather
such hearsay information as you could get from
your brother officers; in fact, about the time you
w ere leaving the station you were beginning to
acquire a knowledge of Avhat you might do.
Then the naval officers are entirely in the hands
of their interpreters ; they can do nothing without
them ; and, so far as I understand, the interpreters
are not to be depended on ; generally
speaking, their knowledge of the language is
imperfect, and it is only by examining and crossexamining
them very diligently that you can
really get correct information.
1215. Are better interpreters to be obtained?
—I believe not at present, but no doubt in a
very short time, if they were properly paid, we
could on tain them.
1216. Am I right in taking the result of your
evidence to be that you think it desirable that
the officers should be employed on the station for
a longer period, so that they might gain local experience
?—No ; because I do not think that
most men can stand more than three years of that
sort of work in that climate, but I think that they
should have supplied to them the information
which has been collected by their predecessors.
1217. You do not anticipate that more active
measures or a more numerous squadron in the
neighbourhood of Zanzibar would have any material
effect in reducing the slave trade ?—I do
not think it would have so material an effect as
dealing with the ports of debarkation. I would
not say it wmuld have no eflect, but it would not
have a material effect.
1218. Did you find great difficulty owing to
the fact that the home trade in slaves at Zanzibar
being legal, the foreign slave trade to the Persian
Gulf, wms able, under the cover of that, to
evade the action of the cruisers ?—I think that
made the greatest difficulty. I think that threw
a great barrier in the way of dealing with the
trade about Zanzibar. I think the whole state of
things would be altered if all slave trade to and
from Zanzibar were made illegal.
1219. Do you think it possible to stop it altogether
by naval operations so long as that mode
of evading it is open to the Arab dhows?—No ;
but I should say that I doubt whether it would
be possible to stop it altogether by any forcible
measures. I think the stoppage of it altogether
must be done by dealing with the authorities at
the ports of embarkation and at the ports of debarkation
by means of treaties.
1220. Would you anticipate any great advantage
from treaties?—Yes, because I think when
armed with a treaty the naval force can act
more efficiently. The treaty does not act
so much directly as indirectly by keeping the
people in fear. I would not trust altogether to
the moral force of treaties in those cases, but
treaties give the naval officers a great deal more
power than they otherwise would have.
1221. What did you do with those dhows
which you captured?—AVe destroyed them immediately.
Captain
P. Colomb,
K.N.
Ml
1222. All
